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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

PIL complaining we don’t visit

63 replies

goaskmum · 08/04/2022 14:57

So my DHs mum and dad are both retired now and have been for a good number of years and they live not even a mile away from me, DH, DS and DD.

We do go to visit them occasionally, but not really that often. Both me and DH work full time and DD and DS are in full time education.

Anyway, they are both active and can get about places. They are able to walk and they have a car and they regularly go out places so it’s not as if they are housebound. My house is within walking distance.

I’m starting to get annoyed with them because, yes me, DH and DC could visit them more often, but it’s a bit hypocritical of them to moan about us not visiting when they don’t come near us either or make regular contact with us.

Sometimes when me and DH visit, they make silly comments like “oh my goodness, do we know you? It’s been so long, did you forget where we lived?”

Me and DH don’t like confrontation so we kind of just laugh it off and say well you know where we live too but it’s getting to the point now where it’s extremely irritating as they make digs about every-time we visit.

AIBU to think that just because they are elderly it doesn’t mean they are exempt from visiting us and that it shouldn’t always be on me and DH to visit them?

OP posts:

Nanny0gg · 08/04/2022 23:52

@zurala

I think this is a generational thing. As children, we only ever visited our grandparents, they came to us once a year, one set at Christmas and the other in the summer. All other trips we went to them. My parents and PIL are similar though my parents are a bit better, but really they expect us to travel to them (2 hours each way) with the kids, I guess because that's what they did when they were the parents? Use your voice, talk to them and invite them round.

What generation would that be. exactly?

FridayBluezzzz · 08/04/2022 23:54

@Kite22

It’s a generational thing. DH grew up in same city as both sets of GPs, said they never came to their house except for Christmas Day, they always had to go see them.

Which generation ?

I'm in my 50s, my parents would have been in their 90s if they were still alive and my Grandparents were born in the 19th Century, and this doesn't apply to any of us.

Well they would have been in their 80s. However no one (I mean no one) in their family has ever left their home city before DH. Even the younger ones now are all there, apart from one cousin who is in a city an hour away. They would go abroad (Spain) but not other places in the U.K. really (a few holiday parks when DH was small) they wouldn’t see the point. They were very working class and very set in their ways. My MIL would have been appalled at her MIL/mother coming round to her house, it just didn’t happen.

WildCoasts · 09/04/2022 00:29

Every fortnight is a very decent amount of visiting. You've been supportive through lock downs too. They have nothing to complain about.

I'd just casually respond to their comments with something like, "You're welcome to come and see us in between, " then move on with the visit.

BackInBits · 09/04/2022 01:38

It’s interesting that they’re comfortable enough to make passive aggressive remarks, but wouldn’t want to be so “pushy” as to invite themselves to your place. Do their passive aggressive comments count towards their side of the “effort”?

YANBU. And it sounds like you see plenty of them already.

Dailyfailcanfeckoff · 09/04/2022 08:56

@Kite22
Which age- well in our case mid 70s+ on one side and 60s+ on the other.

ethelredonagoodday · 09/04/2022 08:58

The road goes both ways, as the saying goes...

QuizzlyBear · 09/04/2022 11:28

I love my parents deeply and thoroughly enjoy their company, but they are the same as yours OP.

I moved out to university at 18 and though there was a public phone in my halls and they had the number, they didn't contact me once after dropping me off. The onus was on me for the next three years to find a public phone and call them regularly. They got shirty if I missed an occasion or a weekly catch up. I was also the one to go home to visit them on the train, they never drove the hour to see me.

It's been the same ever since - I now live 20 minutes down the road but am always the one to visit (once a week plus occasions) and contact them. They have almost never visited my house outside of Christmas etc. They also NEVER call or text, that's apparently my responsibility.

Ironically my DF gets pissed off if I've 'left it too long' though it wouldn't occur to him in a million years that phones work two ways and to pick up the phone himself!

Kite22 · 09/04/2022 14:51

@FridayBluezzzz - well that makes it s "your MiL thing" not a whole generation then.

@Dailyfailcanfeckoff and yet several of us on this thread have said that isn't the case either for them, or for their families, so I say again, it isn't a whole generation.

I do agree with the pps who have said that and adult dc coming back in to their family home, is a slightly different, and more relaxed thing than the parent going in to their adult dc's home, usually because they are respecting their dcs' partner' boundaries. It isn't just their dc's home, it is usually the DiL or SiL's home too. My ds comes here and opens the fridge for a mooch inside, or goes into the treats cupboard for a snack, but I wouldn't do that in his house due to the fact it is his partner's home too, and their house has never been my home. I do call in though.

Just10moreminutesplease · 09/04/2022 14:55

I’d just turn it back on them every time: “yes, we were just saying it’s ages since you’ve came to ours. I bet you wouldn’t even recognise our house now!”.

JustLyra · 09/04/2022 15:02

We would invite them down for the odd meal sometimes, but other than that, no. The door is always open for them so they don’t need an invite

I’d make a point of inviting them for a while.

It might be that they won’t come and they just like a moan, but they might be conscious of how busy they are and not confident to just say “we’re coming over” or “we’d like to visit on Wednesday”.

Just tell them when you’re free or suggest something regular if you’re happy with that.

ImplementingTheDennisSystem · 09/04/2022 15:17

I don't live anywhere near my mum, but she's like this with phone calls.
I'm 38 and since I left home at 18 she hasn't ONCE called me.
She expects me to call and, if I leave it a few days longer than is normal, I often get "I thought you'd forgotten about me!"
Even my 30th birthday she waited for me to call her to enable her to wish me happy birthday.

lemonsorbetinthesun · 12/04/2022 18:56

That’s exactly what I said to my DM.
It’s a road, goes both directions!

nettytree · 12/04/2022 23:31

My pil did this. Even tho when we tried to visit they were always busy with friends. Never came to see us. Even now when we live 4 hours away, they are to busy to see their grandson who is visiting my parents this week. They invite him every school holiday.

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